[Warhammer] - Palace of the Plague Lord by C.L. Werner

Author:C.L. Werner [Werner, C.L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2012-04-01T17:32:59+00:00

The battle with the kraken was many days behind them before the craggy cliffs on the eastern boundary of the Frozen Sea loomed upon the horizon. There was little cheer as Einarr’s warband laid eyes upon the imposing landscape. It towered hundreds of feet above the surface of the sea, every inch of it looking jagged and lethal. There was no sign of any break in the immense wall of rock and ice, it looked as regular as the wall of a titan’s castle, and as imposing. After weeks of hardship and privation on the ice, with nothing but seal meat and ice crabs to sustain them, nothing but snow to drink and little more than good intentions to shelter them from the biting cold, the mere sight of the cliffs was like a physical blow to them.

Einarr paced among them, growling orders, forcing them to move on. It was not that he did not appreciate their despair, he felt the enormity of what lay before them as keenly as anyone, but he knew that if they stopped, if they let the cliffs overcome them, then they would all die upon the ice.

“Orgrim, you have the sharpest eyes, see if you can’t find the best approach.” Einarr could see that the renegade wasn’t particularly hopeful as he loped off across the frozen waves, but he didn’t much care. Lifted by hope or crushed by despair, they would conquer the cliffs.

“I’m not climbing that,” Urda stated, slumping down in the snow. “And you are mad to even try.”

Einarr stared down at the crone. To be truthful, he was surprised the hag had lasted this far, he was amazed she was still breathing, much less able to walk on her own feet. Whatever force drove her on, it was powerful.

“Mad or no, we will climb them,” Einarr said, clenching his fist. The witch shook her head.

“Not if the gods gave me back forty of my winters could I climb that,” she swore. “Besides, there is my hand to consider.” Urda held the hand that had been charred in the fight with the kraken out to Einarr, reminding him of the change that had come over it. The breath of the gods had washed over them constantly as they crawled across the Frozen Sea. All of them sported some degree of change to their bodies, from tufts of hair where no hair had been to patches of feathers and fur. Zhardrach had developed a set of tiny fingers sprouting from his neck while Birna’s nails had lengthened and hardened until they resembled the talons of a bird. In Urda’s case, her injured hand had calcified, changing into something that was more stone than flesh. The fingers of her hand had fused into a crab-like claw of stone. Looking at it, he agreed that it was useless for climbing the cliffs craggy face.

“Thognathog will carry you then,” Einarr told her. “I’ll not leave you behind.”

“Your concern touches me,” Urda said. Einarr laughed.

“It is not you that concerns me, it is your magic,” he said.

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